mr. speaker, that this remains the best recipe for getting our country back to work. beyond our job creation efforts, i'm proud of our leadership on confronting the nation's debt crisis. though not always popular, i refuse to accept the status quo of no budgeting, skyrocketing debt and ignoring the problem which only makes it worse. with over 40 cents now borrowed on every dollar spent by the federal government, this is both a current crisis and a future one as well. last year alone, we spent more paying the interest on the debt than we spent on domestic priorities of education, transportation and natural resource protection combined. this is unsustainable. this is why i have dedicated much of my time and effort of reining in spending and -- in washington. i'm proud of our efforts to introduce the first bipartisan budget in a generation. i want to thank steve latourette and jim cooper for their efforts and leadership on this. i also want to thank congressman quigley to co-sponsor and adva